Well I hear Amazon was out on the hunt for a welfare package. Which city in the good ole USA was going to give them the best welfare package? Whichever one that was, they were going to build a second HQ.
Apparently the opportunity to EXTRACT billions FROM the St. Louis economy was not good enough for them.... twenty cities excluding St. Louis, made the list.
I guess Granite City did not make the list either.
But then I look at the cities that did make it?
CHICAGO? Yes....Chicago made the list.
I mean if you read posts here, you would think of it as a murder ridden hellhole....whose skyline has more plans for cranes to build more of them? How many of those do you see in St. Louis? After the Metro Square and Eagleton Courthouse....cranes have been a little quiet.
I wouldn't even bring this up... Chicago is a great city, not nearly as bad as GCG makes it out to be. But it's far from my kind of town...I would much rather be a STL kind of guy than a Chicago guy. I root for STL to succeed.... Chicago has better pizza, and taught me that ketchup NEVER EVER belongs on a hot dog, EVER....but other than that... I'll BBQ pork steaks from dusk till dawn and bleed Cardinal Red...and I despise Chicago Traffic.... all that economic activity makes for crappy commutes. I love just gliding across the Musial or PSB bridges at any hour of the day.
But some people just love to rip on it. I'm on the STL side of the STL-Chicago rivalry --- but I have to respect my opponent....I have to give them propers for doing what Detroit and St. Louis can't seem to do.
Chicago still has a little under 3 million people and people moving back in from the burbs to escape hellish commutes. Detroit, under 800,000....St. Louis in the low 300,000.....used to have 800,000?
If St. Louis fortunes can't turn, then neither can Granite City. The sprawl will continue.
The 'we have a Dierbergs' vs. the have nots.
NIMBY has its costs.
All the same --- Chicago has cranes in its skyline and some plans for more, to boot. Even the people who you like (not me) such as Donald Trump decided to build a tower where? St. Louis? Nope... you guessed it....an ugly eyesore with his name emblazoned across it in Chicago. He's a welfare rat too! (It seems Chicago police are always outside that building standing guard.)
Count your blessings St. Louis --- you no longer have to give welfare to the Rams nor to Amazon and that's not half bad.....nor is there a Trump tower.
So maybe there is a silver lining behind that cloud after all.
on January 18, 2018, 10:50 pm